WAHMs have all the fun. And also all the work. Or whatever.

I don't talk much about my work in this space. But it's something that's been weighing on my mind a lot lately.

I love my job. I do. I get to handle the social media presence of a university, and it's really a wonderful adventure. I oversee a staff of fantastic student bloggers who amaze me every day with their insight and personality and passion for life. And I get paid to spend large parts of my day on Facebook and on Twitter and reading great blogs. How many people can say that?

So all things considered, I truly love what I do. But the thing is, I have these kids, you know?

The Monster, 17 months

The Princess, turning 6 this month!

And, well...I miss them when I'm at work.

When I became pregnant with my daughter almost 7 years ago, I was able to convert my job from full-time to half-time. I was very happy with that schedule. Yes, it required considerable sacrifice, because I gave up half my salary along with half my hours, and frankly, I did not give up half my workload; I had to do almost as much work in half the time, for half the pay. But we made it work, and I believed it was worth the sacrifices. I felt kind of balanced and whole.

After two years of that, some of my job duties shifted and I agreed to come back full-time, on the condition that I would be allowed to work 20 of my hours from home. This? Was kind of wonderful. I got my full salary back, and enough hours in the day to do my job without giving myself a heart attack, but I still had the flexibility and freedom to be at home with my daughter for many of her daylight hours. And my entire family thrived.

Working from home certainly has its own set of challenges. Teaching my toddler to entertain herself so Mommy could work was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. But I did it, and I think she's better for it. She's strong and independent and creative and imaginative, and I was there to see all of that. I also received nearly perfect performance evaluations during this time; the autonomy of my schedule really brought out the best in me, at home and at work.

When my son was born I continued this half-time in the office, half-time at home schedule, and once again had to reevalute my time management and routines, but again, I made it work.

Things have changed recently, though. My workplace no longer allows telecommuting. So last summer I had to rearrange my life one more time, find full-day childcare, and now I'm in the office all day every day.

It's hard. As much as I love my job, I miss the work-at-home mom I used to be. I miss getting up and booting up my laptop in my pajamas, snuggling with my kids while they watch cartoons and eat breakfast and I check my email and start my day. I miss watching my daughter teach her baby brother how to walk, talk, and play. I miss so many of these moments now, and it's difficult.

OK, maybe I don't so much miss "Moooooommmm, I'm huuuuuuungry" just as I begin a conference call. But overall, I do miss being a work-at-home mom. I'm not saying it's easy; just that, for me, it's worth it.

I'm hopeful that there are solutions still waiting to be found. That this is a temporary crossroads in my life, this full-time office job. As much as I adore what I do, I can't shake the knowledge that I could be doing it just as effectively and so much more contentedly from my home. The knowledge that I am committed to my career, but my career is not who I am. The knowledge that my babies are growing up and I'm missing much of it.

Are you a working mom? A work-at-home mom? A work-away-from-home mom? How do you find balance? And are there still opportunities out there to make a real living working from home?

What say you?

That S-word.

The Princess (my 5-year-old daughter) has been exhibiting some curiosity about some things. You might remember this post, where I employed classic distraction techniques to smoothly avoid the "how are babies made" question.

Folks? It's getting worse. I blame TV. And school. And billboards. And music.

Awhile back she heard and retained the word "sex" from somewhere. She asked what it was. I reached into my vast mental catalog of parenting wisdom and tried to be "honest but age-appropriate" and "literal" and "tell her the truth but no more than she's explicitly asking for." Ummm. So I told her that when a man and a woman love each other and get married (yeah, that's right), sex is a special way for them to show their love, kind of like hugging and kissing but different, and more private, and it's only for grownups.

Her reply: "Is that when grownups take off their clothes and kiss NAKED?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

"What? Where did you hear that?"

"Mom. I saw it on TV one time."

Look, we are not watching HBO with her or anything, and we're actually very careful about what she watches. But yeah, I guess, really, scenes like that, or scenes which are clearly leading up to that, appear almost everywhere these days, right? The word sex and images relating to it are rampant in our society. And my little girl? She's smart. She's very, very observant, and very, very verbal. She gets what words mean and uses context clues to fill in the holes. She associates words with images and actions and she puts it all together.

So, yes. I told her the truth. "Yes. It involves two grownups who are in love and married taking their clothes off."

"Gross."

And that was the end of that.

Until yesterday.

"Mom? Remember that s-word, the one that's private and not for kids to say?"

"....you mean sex?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?"

"What IS that? I mean what do grownups DO when they do sex?"

"......"

"Mom?"

"Why do you want to know this?"

"I don't know. I just want to know."

"Was somebody talking about it to you?"

"No. Well, Freddy in my class has been singing a song with that word in it."

"What song?"

"I'm not supposed to say that word! It's not for kids!"

"It's ok to say it to me. You can say it and I won't be mad. How does the song go?"

She eyed me suspiciously for a moment and then rolled her eyes and said, "I'm sexy and I know it. You MADE me say it!"

"Oh. Ok. I know that song. But why did that make you ask me these questions?"

"I just remembered that word and I remembered you told me it was private and something grownups do but I don't understand what they DO."

"Maybe you don't need to understand what they do just yet."

"Mom. Just tell me, ok?"

Sigh. Honestly? I felt we'd reached the point of no return. I don't want to give her the idea that sex is dirty or shameful. I also don't want to wait until the porn-saturated society she lives in fills her head with ideas about sex. I want her first impressions of sex to come from me, so she can remember it as a normal, natural, beautiful thing that is waiting for her to enjoy when she grows up. 

I think back to history and realize that 100, 200 years ago? Kids knew all about sex. They saw animals do it. They shared bedrooms with their parents. It was part of life. 

Today our kids are insulated from these "normal" aspects of sex, but overly exposed to commercialization and exploitative images of sex; raunchiness becomes their framework for what is normal. Sex isn't what I don't want her to be exposed to; it's the corruption and cheapening of it that happens in our culture. 

So I believe it's my job to normalize it and set a foundation that might help to combat the information she's going to come up against as she grows up.

So.

I told her.

I told her exactly what happens, in the simplest and most basic terms. When she asked "why" anybody would EVER do something like that, I told her that it's how God designed us, and how we make babies (which then led to a brief explanation of "eggs" and "seeds"), and yes, I told her we do it because it feels nice.

She asked if I'd ever done that with her father. I said yes. "When?" she asked. I hesitated. "For sure before you and Monster were born, of course." 

"No, I mean when? At night when I'm asleep?"

"Oh. Well, yes." 

"In your BED?"

"Yes..." Now, I admit, I'm starting to feel weird about this line of questioning.

"Oh."

And then she was satisfied, and the conversation was over. 

And I felt a little sad that my baby has reached this moment in her life. And a little apprehensive that maybe she really is too young to know these things. But mostly I felt relieved, and a little proud. I felt like I'd handled it the way I always wanted to handle it. Calmly, rationally, with no shame or guilt or embarrassment. I stressed that it's for grownups, and it's private, and she doesn't need to talk to anybody else about it and if somebody tries to talk to HER about it, she should tell me.  But that she can always come to Mommy and ask questions, and I will always answer them.

What do you think? How old were your kids when you told them the facts of life? And did I do ok??

Linking up today with Yeah Write #41 (formerly LoveLinks)

Save Our Sam

Remember Sam?

This is Sam. He's adorable and people love him and he has cancer. No fair.

If you haven't read the story, you should. Sam was brought into this world and into the arms of his loving parents through a gestational surrogate, JW Moxie who blogs at The Smartness. Now he's been diagnosed with leukemia (no fair), and Moxie is going all out to rally the troops in his support. Please take a moment to visit the Save Our Sam website and find out how you can help, even if it's just to leave a note of encouragement for Sam and his family. And please, keep praying!

How to help:

To send love from afar, sign up for SOS Care Mail and give little Sam something to look forward to and distract him from the yuckiness. He's a kid, you guys! Kids love mail and presents! And kids with cancer need stuff they love coming at them every day.

If you're in the Savannah area (I'm totally not, but maybe you are?), show some local love.

If you make stuff and sell it, or if you have the talent to make stuff that people might potentially want to buy, or you know someone who does, and you and/or your friend like self-promotion, brand exposure, saving lives, and good karma, consider joining the SOS Online Store.

Visit Sam's Caring Bridge site and leave a note for Sam and his family. They read them and they love them.

And of course, follow Save our Sam to keep updated on other ways you can help. 

Please.

Last week the wonderful and talented JW Moxie of The Smartness emailed me and asked me to guest post for her.  I was beyond flattered.  I first discovered Moxie via Twitter when somebody posted this.  It cracked me up.  Then I poked around her blog a little and found this.  And it made me cry.  Seriously.  Go read it.  It's an incredible story.  She's an incredible woman.

OK, if you're too lazy to click, just know this: after battling and overcoming infertility herself, Moxie became a gestational surrogate and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy for another infertile couple.  It's a fantastic story and I highly suggest you read it yourself.

So I was very excited to guest post for her, and asked her to do the same for me.  Everything was rolling along smoothly, and then today she posted this.  In short: Sam, her surrogate son, is 4 years old now, and he has been diagnosed with leukemia.

I can't describe how devastating I find this news.  Especially considering I have never met Moxie in person, have barely communicated with her at all, really.  But I know her.  And I consider her a friend.  Blogging is like that. She's my kind of people.  And she's done amazing things, and has inspired me with her story and her words.  And she loves this little boy with all her heart, as if he were her own, because really, he is.

So instead of the guest post we had originally planned, I'm dedicating this little corner of the internet, my little bit of real estate, to her and to Sam.  Please read "Please."  Please.  Read it, and pray.  For Moxie and for Sam, and for Sam's parents, who waited so long and went to such lengths to bring him into their family.  I have faith in God and in the power of prayer; if you do, too, please use it for this little boy and the people who love him and who waited so long to call him theirs.

Thank you.

Did you know? I'm a writer.

I'll be participating in my third National Novel Writing Month this November.  NaNoWriMo, if you weren't aware, is a challenge to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (the month of November).  I started in 2009 and successfully completed 50,000 words.  Let me tell you something:  That's a lot of words.  A LOT of words.  Many try.  Few succeed.

Check it.

In 2010 I gave birth in September and attempted Nano in November with a 6-week-old in the house.  It was a spectacular failure.  But I was ok with that.

So now I'm trying again, 2011, ready to go.  My baby is a year old now and reliably goes to bed at 8 and sleeps all night (holla!).  So I should be able to get some writing in each evening and get my gears turning again.

Because I want to be a writer.

I want to be a writer?  How sad.  I used to say "I am a writer."  But writers write.  Right?  Writers write, and I don't write anything these days.  Well, let me qualify that.  I write for a living.  Technically.  I am a writer.  But I write marketing copy, admission letters, college catalog copy.  I write other people's words.

And I write this blog.  And I love writing this blog, and part of the reason I started blogging was to find my voice again.  And I plan to keep writing this blog as long as you keep reading it, and maybe even if you don't.  But at the end of the day, the writer I want to be is a fiction writer.  A novelist.  And I haven't been actively writing fiction since...November 2009.

So I'm here to say that I am a writer, and I am going to write. I'm going to write marketing copy and admission letters and academic catalog copy, and I'm going to write this blog, and I'm going to write 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days.

 I'm pretty sure placement of this badge constitutes a legally binding contract.

Some of that may cross over.  Well, I won't make you guys read any admission letters.  Probably.  But you might have to read some of my NaNoWriMo fiction posing as blog posts.  Deal with it.  It's good stuff.  You'll like it, ok?

Oh, also?  I'm cheating.  The rules of NaNoWriMo state that you must write an entire novel, a new novel, in 30 days.  I'm not doing that.  Because that's not what I want, what I need, from this experience.  And I don't work for NaNo, NaNo works for me.  Yeah.

So I'll be starting my word count at 0 and doing 50,000 new words.  But they'll be part of a larger work in progress, because I'll be continuing the novel I began two years ago.  OK, the novel I began at age 16, the novel that has grown up with me, that's been written and rewritten and burned and resurrected a dozen times in a dozen different iterations over nearly half my lifetime.  Because that's the novel that's in me, and someday it'll be finished, and someday it'll be great.

Here's a synopsis of that novel:

In 1979 Dr. Vivian Bell, two-year-old daughter Julia in tow, led a motley band of idealists from a California university to a patch of rural farmland and built a commune--a self-proclaimed “Utopia” seeking to create a life of equality and harmony. Rebelling against both the competitiveness and materialism of the culture at large and the free-love individualism of the hippies before them, the founders of Orchard Valley Homestead set out to create something better for themselves and their children. Decades later the community lives on, forgotten by the world, its members doggedly clinging to ideals they’ve failed to live up to time and time again. It was here that Julia grew up, both inextricably bound to her mother’s creation and unbearably resentful of it. 

How We Go On is the story of mothers and their daughters in a world defined at once by isolation and by community. Vivian will grow larger than life in this world; Julia will be destroyed by it. And in her last moments Julia will throw her own daughter, 13-year-old Shelby, the only lifeline she has—a life somewhere else, with a man Julia once cared for, a man who left their childhood home without her. Shelby steps out alone, still numb with the loss and betrayal of her mother, towards an unknown future in a culture both deceptively familiar and terrifyingly foreign, only to be confronted by her own past: her newly appointed guardian, an uncle she’s never known, holds secrets about her, her mother, her long-forgotten father—and the community they all once belonged to, the only family Shelby has ever known.

I hope you guys will all stick with me through November, and cheer me on, jeer me, kick my butt, mock my failures, etc.  I need you to hold me accountable.  OK?  OK.  Thanks.

Wordless Wednesday. Don't get used to it.

OK not entirely wordless.  I'm fairly certain wordless is not something I'm actually capable of.  But more pictures than words today, ok?  Also maybe not so much funny today.  Sorry.

Two of my favorite people to stalk on Twitter, Ilana (@mommyshorts) and Kate (@andthenkate), teamed up today on Ilana's blog.  Kate guest-posted about why she's happy with one child.  Her daughter is about my daughter's age, and the Princess was an only child for a good 4 1/2 years before we made her into a sister, so it kind of made me think.

Because for awhile I really did think the Princess might be my one and only.  One and done.  And in some ways I was ok with that because the love?  The joy?  The amazingness?  The Squinkies?  How could that not be enough?  And how could I ever love another person as completely as I love her?

But then the Monster happened, and honestly?

 How could I have ever thought I was complete without him?

So here's my wordless (ish) Wednesday:

One is fabulous.

One is precious and heartbreaking.

One makes me wrinkle my nose with laughter.

One is challenging and strong-willed and beautiful.
One is perfect.

But two?  Oh my goodness.  Two is twice as perfect.

Two is glee.

Two is best friends.

Two is hilarious.

Two is adventure.

Two is peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake and endless giggles.

Two is everything.

not a post so much as a poll

I've noticed a few people stumbling over the word "normalcy" in the title of my blog.  Maybe it's not quite as clean and easy on the tongue as say, "nearly normal," but that one is taken, folks.  Besides, I like that "normalcy" is a noun, a state of being.  It fits the tagline..."and staying there one Zoloft at a time."  I like that "normalcy" is a "place" you can stay "near."

But who cares what I like?  This is about you, and the tens of thousands of people just like you who are just looking for a blog just like this.  So what do you think?  Does my title need a revamp?

Seriously, Though: An Introduction

Hi.

This blog is never going to be a serious blog.  It's not going to be motivational, inspirational, moving, thought-provoking, helpful, instructive, or otherwise worthwhile.  It's always going to be silly and rather pointless.  Except for right now, for just a teeny tiny minute, ok?  This is important.  And it's likely the only important thing I'll ever tell you, so just suck it up and read it.

A word about clinical depression:
  
This blog is not about clinical depression.  It's not about anything, really.  It's barely even a blog.  But it is written by me, and I am a person who has been diagnosed with clinical depression, and who has been dealing with depression for all of my adult life.

I was diagnosed around the age of 24, but that was only because I had finally reached what felt like rock bottom, and my husband and I were thinking about starting a family, and this combination of factors forced me to recognize that I needed to get help.  It's clear now that I had been suffering from undiagnosed depression for many, many years prior to this, as far back as adolescence.

Getting help was the best decision I could have made.

Since that time I have had many hours of talk therapy and have taken and benefited from a number of antidepressant medications.  These years have not always been easy.  Depression and its far-reaching effects have caused deep and lasting pain and heartache to me and to many of my loved ones.  So let me say this now:  Depression is not a joke. 

My belief is not that depression is funny, but that life is funny, and life should be funny, even when you're depressed.  Especially when you're depressed.  Because if anybody needs a good laugh, it's us.

If you're reading this and you even suspect that you might be suffering from depression, please get help.  You can feel better.  You can't do it alone.  Look, here's a link to get you started:

http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-resources

No, seriously.  Click the link.  Read the info.  We'll wait.

Then come join the party.  Ain't no party like a clinically depressed party, because a clinically depressed party...well, it can dissolve into tears at any moment.  And that's ok.

Forgive the cliche:  I've found that when you've spent some time overwhelmed by the dark, you learn to appreciate the light that much more.  And maybe that's what this blog is about.  Or maybe it's just about a really neurotic, self-absorbed woman who likes to hear herself talk.  Or both!  I guess we'll find out together, if you stick with me.

I hope you will, because I'm trying to get rich and famous here, remember?

Welcome.

Alyssa